Aurora Borealis on 6/23/15…
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Monthly Archives: June 2015
Happy 60th…
It was my mama’s 60th birthday yesterday! She was able to get the day off and spent her morning with me, so we were up at about 3ish a.m. and hit the road to Glacier National Park to watch the sun rise, ate breakfast at Lake McDonald Lodge, and then did some walking, exploring and did lots of picture taking throughout the day…
We finished up with a nice lunch and headed home. It was so much fun to get to spend time with my mom!
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Barrow’s Goldeneye…
On a hike by Fishercap Lake in Many Glaciers…
We spotted a few female (what we believe to be ) Barrow’s Goldeneye…
They ended up getting a bit too close together and duck decided she didn’t want the other around…
And chased the other one away!
Cool Facts
- The Barrow’s Goldeneye is rather long-lived for a duck, with one individual reaching 18 years of age. Most females do not breed until they are three years old.
- Like the Common Goldeneye, the Barrow’s Goldeneye is not too particular about holding on to its own offspring. A female may lay eggs in the nest of another goldeneye or other species of cavity-nesting duck. Once the ducklings come out of the nest, the broods of different females often come together and are taken care of by a single female. The young ducklings are highly independent, feeding on their own, and require little parental care.
- For a species with such widely separated populations, it is perhaps surprising that the Barrow’s Goldeneye shows little variation from place to place. Those breeding in North America are essentially identical on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Female Barrow’s Goldeneyes breeding in Iceland do not get as extensively yellow bills as the North American birds, but have only a yellow or orangish band on the outer third of the otherwise dusky bill.
For more information please visit Here…
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Great Spangled Fritillary and Swallowtail Butterflies…
A Fritillary on Orange Hawkweed (a noxious weed)..
Another Fritillary on a yellow marigold…
A swallowtail enjoying the flowers planted in my pots outback…
Unlatching from the flower…
Beauties…
Fence-line…
The Crossing…
Evening Fishing…
We spent Sunday evening fishing and exploring the countryside…
Dragon Flies…
My Fishing crew…
Water Lilies…
Water Lilies…
Little boys fishing…
Frogs peaking out…
Reflecting…
Sego Lily…
Sky reflecting on the pond…
Wild Iris…
Wild Roses…
Wild Iris…
More water lilies…
Great Blue Heron…
Western Tanager…
Cool Facts
- While most red birds owe their redness to a variety of plant pigments known as carotenoids, the Western Tanager gets its scarlet head feathers from a rare pigment called rhodoxanthin. Unable to make this substance in their own bodies, Western Tanagers probably obtain it from insects in their diet.
- This species ranges farther north than any other tanager, breeding northward to a latitude of 60 degrees—into Canada’s Northwest Territories. In the chilly northernmost reaches of their breeding range, Western Tanagers may spend as little as two months before migrating south.
- Male Western Tanagers sometimes perform an antic, eye-catching display, apparently a courtship ritual, in which they tumble past a female, their showy plumage flashing yellow and black.
- Around the turn of the twentieth century, Western Tanagers were thought to pose a significant threat to commercial fruit crops. One observer wrote that in 1896, “the damage done to cherries in one orchard was so great that the sales of the fruit which was left did not balance the bills paid out for poison and ammunition.” Today, it is illegal to shoot native birds and Western Tanagers are safer than they were a century ago.
- The oldest Western Tanager on record—a male originally banded in Nevada in 1965—had lived at least 6 years and 11 months by the time it was recaptured and rereleased in Oregon in 1971.
- For more information visit here…
Stormy Sunset at the Pond…
Eagle…
Cool Facts
- Rather than do their own fishing, Bald Eagles often go after other creatures’ catches. A Bald Eagle will harass a hunting Osprey until the smaller raptor drops its prey in midair, where the eagle swoops it up. A Bald Eagle may even snatch a fish directly out of an Osprey’s talons. Fishing mammals (even people sometimes) can also lose prey to Bald Eagle piracy. See an example here.
- Had Benjamin Franklin prevailed, the U.S. emblem might have been the Wild Turkey. In 1784, Franklin disparaged the national bird’s thieving tendencies and its vulnerability to harassment by small birds. “For my own part,” he wrote, “I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. … Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District.”
- Sometimes even the national bird has to cut loose. Bald Eagles have been known to play with plastic bottles and other objects pressed into service as toys. One observer witnessed six Bald Eagles passing sticks to each other in midair.
- The largest Bald Eagle nest on record, in St. Petersburg, Florida, was 2.9 meters in diameter and 6.1 meters tall. Another famous nest—in Vermilion, Ohio—was shaped like a wine glass and weighed almost two metric tons. It was used for 34 years until the tree blew down.
- Immature Bald Eagles spend the first four years of their lives in nomadic exploration of vast territories and can fly hundreds of miles per day. Some young birds from Florida have wandered north as far as Michigan, and birds from California have reached Alaska.
- Bald Eagles can live a long time, with a longevity record of 28 years in the wild and 36 years in captivity.
- Bald Eagles occasionally hunt cooperatively, with one individual flushing prey towards another.
- For more information visit here…
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